Blizzard announces Warcraft III: Reforged

Blizzard has revealed that it is making Warcraft III: Reforged, a comprehensive modern-technology remaster of the seminal 2002 real-time strategy game.

The company described Warcraft III: Reforged thus: “A remake in the truest sense, Warcraft III: Reforged sees the original Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its award-winning expansion, The Frozen Throne, rebuilt from the ground up, with a thorough visual overhaul, a suite of contemporary social and matchmaking features via Blizzard Battle.net, and a pledge of support for its thriving community of creators—starting with an upgraded World Editor.”

Blizzard added: “For Warcraft III: Reforged, every character, structure, and environment has been recreated to emphasize the depth, dimension, and personality of this rough-hewn world. The Warcraft III saga, which spans more than 60 campaign missions, enjoys an epic retelling in Reforged, with over four hours of updated in-game cut-scenes and rerecorded voice-overs that breathe new life into the earliest renditions of key characters like Sylvanas Windrunner and Arthas Menethil.”

Blizzard’s newly installed President, J Allen Brack, said: “Warcraft III is monumentally important to us here at Blizzard, and its influence is evident in everything we’ve done since. A project like Warcraft III: Reforged isn’t something we undertake lightly, partly because of this legacy, but more importantly, because we know what it means to our players.”

Blizzard hasn’t revealed whether Warcraft III: Reforged will be available on platforms other than the PC, but it has said that it will be released: “In 2019”. And there will be two versions on sale: a £24.99 standard edition, plus a £34.99: “Spoils of War Edition, which includes unique skins for four of the game’s hero units, as well as a host of in-game bonuses for a number of other Blizzard games, such as a gruesome Meat Wagon mount for World of Warcraft, the Third War card back for Hearthstone, and more.”

For further information on the remaster for the game which effectively spawned the MOBA genre (Dota was originally a Warcraft III mod), keep an eye on Blizzard’s website.

Steve Boxer has been writing about videogames since the early 1990s. His first console was an Atari VCS, and he misspent most of his youth in the 1980s in the arcades. As well as for Green Man Gaming, he can be found writing for The Guardian, Empire, TechRadar and Pocket-Lint. He’s currently having trouble deciding whether his favourite console is his Xbox One X or his Switch, and plays a wide range of games, but especially RPGs (he loves a good JRPG) action-adventure titles, shooters of all descriptions and driving games. Follow him here.